Learning from the Great and the Good 20/21 – Gameweek 25

“We can’t go on together

With suspicious minds

And we can’t build our dreams

On suspicious minds”

Plenty of suspicious minds on show this week as we had Villa players banned from FPL, the 1 minute post-deadline Double Gameweek 26 fixture release and even talk of robots tracking footballers FPL teams, it was enough to make many of us feel we were caught in a trap.

The fantasy action meanwhile left us all shook up with Liverpool continuing their alarming decline, Fulham looking revitalized and Leeds providing us with a fitting finale as Dallas, Raphinha and Bamford proved to be the main event.

The managers in The Great and The Good jumpsuits are the Scouts Neale Rigg and Joe Lepper, Pro Pundits (Mark Sutherns, Az, Lateriser, Fabio Borges and Tom Freeman ), FPL “celebrities”, FPL General,  Magnus Carlsen and finally from the Hall of Fame we have Ville Ronka, Matthew Jones and Sean Tobin

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Az was the undisputed King of Rock n’ Roll this week as he hit the century thanks to his bold Bamford triple captain, alongside double-digit scores from his United midfielders and of course 17 points from that hunk of burning love Dallas.

This sees him move up over 300,000 places and his temperature must be rising as he is now within touching distance of Tom Freeman and Ville Ronka to move him out of the relegation zone. Az is the form manager right now with an average of 69.6 points over the last five weeks, but he is closely followed by that Hound dog Joe on 68.4.

Joe has had four out of five green arrows, rising by 360,000 places, his resurgence coincides with his purchase of Gundogan but it’s been the wonder of his flying full backs who have led the charge with Dallas, Justin and Lowton all hauling double digits over the last few weeks.

At the top of the table, things are hotting up with Mark now only 29 points behind FPL General, he gained 20 points on him this week alone with a bold Raphina captaincy paying off for him. Who will end up in Graceland by the end of the season?

WILDCARD – Lateriser

Lateriser provided the jailhouse rock as he released his second Wildcard ready to capitalize on the doubles schedule, this appears to be the start of his offensive moves as he still has his Bench Boost, Free Hit and Triple Captain chips in hand.

The full in moves are listed below:-

IN – Areola, Tete, Burn, Shaw, Rudiger, Gundogan, Harrison, Raphina, Kane, Ings

OUT – Button, Stones, Tarkowski, Mee, Mitchell, Sterling, Barnes, Burke, Antonio, Calvert-Lewin

The number of differential picks shows his ambition with seven of his moves at under 10% ownership at the time of writing, although the initial results probably left him broken-hearted.

Whilst there is much to like about many of his new recruits he would wish to have many returned to sender as those he kicked out, Barnes, Sterling, Antonio and the Burnley defensive duo provided a sad story of what could have been.

Although, he has ten DGWERS for 26, I suspect he will add to that before Saturday as he has left 1.1 million in the bank, will he go back to Barnes or even Calvert-Lewin?

TRANSFERS

Let’s check in on this week’s transfers

This is a summary of the transfers for this week :

Az – Raphinha (Soucek)

Fabio Borges – Ings, Raphinha (Antonio, Anguissa)

Joe Lepper – Ings, Raphinha (Antonio, Soucek)

FPL General – Ings, Raphinha (Antonio, Soucek)

Lateriser – Wildcard

Magnus Carlsen – Ings, Raphinha (Antonio, Sterling)

Mark Sutherns – Ings, Dallas (Antonio, Coufal)

Matthew Jones – None

Neale Rigg – Raphinha (Soucek)

Sean Tobin – Raphinha, Forster (Pope, Soucek)

Tom Freeman – Raphinha (Soucek)

Ville Ronka – Ings, Raphinha, Dallas (Antonio, Grealish, Robinson)

*transfers out are in brackets

Leeds players were this week’s blue suede shoes as only Matthew Jones didn’t use at least one of their transfers to bring in either Raphinha, Dallas or both. Ings was another popular choice but he was lonesome on Tuesday night as he disappointed many by starting on the bench.

Magnus, along with FPL General and Ville, took a rare hit to bring in Ings and Raphinha, this was only his third of the season but was punished as Sterling and Antonio both scored as they left the building.

TEMPLATE 

The template for The Great and The Good is as follows with number in brackets showing how many teams in which they appear:-

Pope (5), Martinez (5)

Cancelo (9), Coufal (7), Dallas (7), Stones (6), Dias (6),

Bruno Fernandes (12), Raphinha (12), Gundogan (10), Salah (9), Son (5)

Bamford (12), Ings (7), Calvert-Lewin (7)

It was always on my mind that we would see a shift in the template this week as we saw Raphina join both Bamford and Bruno as seemingly essential by The Great and The Good.

Ings joins the ranks replacing Antonio, but we may have to love him tender as his return to fitness may yet not be complete, although will be interesting to see if managers keep the faith as he has a potential double in Gameweek 28.

TARGET TRANSFERS

Digging a bit deeper into the transfer strategies of The Great and The Good this week as I look back at which area of the pitch they have focused their investment. The table below shows their transfers, excluding Wildcards and Free Hits, split by position:-

Midfield has been the place we have seen the biggest movement with 44% of their trades in this area of the pitch, supporting the view this the middle of the park has provided the biggest source of points and potential rank climbs this season.

Matthew Jones has been the Colonel Tom Parker of the attacking transfers having made the most striker moves with eleven but delving a little deeper seven of those were done in the first 13 weeks and his switch of investment elsewhere has coincided with his remarkable rise up the rankings.

Conflicting fortunes for those who have made the most defensive transfers with Fabio and Az both having hit double digits for their back-line trades. Mr Borges could afford a little conversation and a little more action with tweaks to his rear-guard as his Gameweek 1 team was so strong, his zombie team would have scored 252 more than Az’s opening line up.

CONCLUSION

The biggest double of the season awaits us causing much excitement amongst The Great and The Good, with Bench Boosts, Triple Captain and Wildcards being readied.

Whilst we can’t help falling in love with a double I would urge a little caution as we can expect further rotation, plus the smart manager will also have plans for the blank Gameweek 29 and the fixture swing post Gameweek 30/31 where Arsenal and Wolves players may yet again prove popular.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now and remember don’t have nightmares.

For those affected by any of the topics raised in the above article then you can find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Greyhead19

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